The Point of No Return

2022·0.54 MB·english

by  Devyn Sinclair

THE POINT OF NO RETURN
DEVYN SINCLAIR
Copyright © 2022 by Devyn Sinclair
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and
retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Book Cover by SP Designs.
Created with Vellum
To my ninjas—you know who you are.
CONTENTS
Author’s Note
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Epilogue
Keep in touch!
About the Author
Also by Devyn Sinclair
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Dear Readers,
This book is meant to be fun and fantasy. However, within that, there are some themes and
situations that could be disturbing to some readers. No book is worth your mental health. So if you
feel you might need to know a bit more, the full content warnings for this book are available on my
website.
www.devynsinclair.com
PROLOGUE
____________
MARIUS
T he crowd on the steps of the opera house was loud. Clamoring. We’d seen crowds like this
in our days, but never here. Never right below our feet.
Even in the wake of the fire that nearly destroyed this building, there hadn’t been a group of
people so large and so rowdy. The people carried cameras and music floated above the crowd in
quick snippets. Opera. Beautiful.
Across the plaza, a sleek black limousine appeared. The crowd all came to attention, focus on the
car. This must be the girl they’d all been waiting for. The singer who was supposed to be a prodigy.
An undiscovered talent.
She would come and go like the other talent I imagined.
People surged forward as soon as the car came to a stop. Two large men forced themselves
through the crowd to create a bubble. The car door opened, and then, nothing. I got a glimpse of a lean
body and a baseball hat. No hint of who she was or what she looked like.
The crowd leaned so far forward, pressing into the bubble around her that it looked sticky.
Viscous, as they tugged her up the stairs and into the newly busy cacophony that vibrated beneath us.
Yet another voice, Alexandre said, annoyed.
Erik laughed once. At least this one will be pretty.
After two hundred years of silence, adjusting to the constant noise in the building below was a
struggle. It felt like a constant hum, waiting for us to focus and follow the vibrations until we could
hear clearly.
Below us, the girl and her guards were nearing the top of the stairs. She was about to disappear
from my view. A breeze off the river spun through the air, delivering the scents of the summer city.
River water and wine, croissants and sweet perfume. Lilacs and lotus and a hundred different
flowers.
The last scent slammed into me with the force of lightning.
MINE.
The roar echoed through my mind and was reflected back by the others. My long existence was
forever cleaved into two. Before I’d experienced that scent, and after.
My mate.
Our Mate.
I’d thought it was a myth.
That was Erik. We knew it wasn’t a myth, but rare enough that it felt that way. A mate. One
singular being that matched you in every way. Was meant to you. Whose soul belonged to you.
Or us, bound as we were.
Mine.
Any more forceful and my growl would echo through my bound stone form. I felt the building
beneath my feet crack, my power trying to rip itself loose in defiance of the fucking sun and the magic
that was binding me here. That was my mate and I needed to get to her. Now.
Don’t break yourself, Marius. Erik said. You can’t get to her broken on the street below.
That was the only thing stopping me from tearing myself apart to reach her. I couldn’t reach her if
I was dead. That need eclipsed everything. Even my own life. The pebbles from the cracks vibrated
with the energy that I was shoving down.
She disappeared out of sight, the last tendrils of fragrance blown away from her. I didn’t know
what she looked like. Hadn’t gotten a chance to see her because she’d been hiding.
I felt the singular shift in purpose between the three of us. No longer merely attempting to escape
our connection to this place and retaking our power. But having her. Protecting her. Making her ours.
We’d heard her name enough over the past weeks, spoken through the stone. It was the same name
that now floated up from hundreds of mouths in the crowd spread out in front of the opera house.
Christine.
CHAPTER ONE
____________
CHRISTINE
M y own face stared back at me, twenty feet tall. I was decked out in full costume; the image
divided in two. On one side I was in full armor, holding a sword directly vertical, staring
into the camera. The other side I was feminine. Dressed in flowing white and looking delicate.
Joan D’Arc.
I was never going to get used to that.
This was the airport.
Quickly, I looked around to see if anyone had noticed that it was me that was staring out at them in
the transportation section of Charles de Gaul.
Of course they hadn’t. It was the morning, and I looked like I’d just crawled out of Paris’s famous
catacomb system after an eight-hour flight.
I would be lying if I said this was the first time I realized exactly how big this was going to be,
but every time I saw something like that billboard, it hit me all over again. It was hard to wrap my
head around.
Checking the notes on my phone again, I made my way towards the arrival doors, lugging my too-
large suitcases with me. People who traveled light when they were going somewhere for a month
amazed me. It felt like I’d packed up my entire life to come here.
But then again, if this went well, it would change everything.
There. A line of drivers stood with signs for their passengers. My stomach flipped at the thought